Hygiene Practices Among Street Food Vendors And Microbial Content Of Foods Sold At Ayensuano District

Abstract

Globally, the estimated amount of food found to be contaminated from street vendors particularly in developing countries is on the ascendancy. The contribution vendors unhygienic practices make to food contamination. This study sought to investigate hygiene practices among street food vendors and microbial content of some selected food sold at Ayensuano District in the Eastern Region of Ghana. First, 76 food samples which includes “kenkey” with pepper, “waakye”, porridge and fried rice were analyzed using molecular techniques to determine the presence of microbial content of Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhi, Staphylococcus aureus and Campylobacter jejuni at at the Biotechnology Laboratory, University of Ghana. The study was cross sectional and systematically recruited 304 food vendors using simple random sampling method. A structured questionnaire was administered to gather data on the knowledge level of food vendors on food-borne diseases, personal hygiene status and environmental cleanliness of vending premises. Data collected on 304 respondents were entered into an SPSS version 25. The descriptive tool categorized consumers’ knowledge and attitude in frequencies and percentages. Using inferential statistics, chi-square test was employed to determine the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. This study showed a statistically significant association (p < 0.05) between the characteristics of selling sites, including selling foods by the open gutter, selling foods in the presence of refuse dumpsites, selling foods with flies hovering on the foods and clean environment. There was also a significant relationship (p < 0.05) between marital status and personal hygiene practices. There was statistically significant (p < 0.05) relation between educational qualification and personal hygiene practices. It was observed that 65% of the food vendors sell food in fly infested areas, 48.8% sell foods by the open gutter and 57.7% of the vendors do not have any idea in sterilization of tools used in the kitchen. The study revealed that of the 76 food samples collected, Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhi, Staphylococcus aureus and Campylobacter jejuni were present/absent in the food samples especially kenkey with hot pepper and waakye. The study confirmed that there was a problem with contamination of street foods within Ayensuano District and regular training and medical examination of street food vendors within the district should done to ensure good food hygiene.